ERRA

ERRA

Written by: PP on 03/05/2021 17:19:11

Five albums down and we're still wondering when ERRA will rise on festival ranks, but alas, that is the trouble with releasing albums in a genre as saturated as metalcore during the 2010s. It's not for the lack of effort though given critically acclaimed previous output like "Augment" or "Impulse", but more so due to difficulty in gaining traction within a genre with so many bands sounding alike. For their fifth album, it finally starts feeling like ERRA is slowly being recognized by the masses for what critics have been pointing out for years now: their masterful blend between progressive metalcore and post-hardcore is rather unique as it is brilliant.

Essentially, "ERRA" goes all-in on just about every frontier of the band's soundscape. Intricate, complex metalcore with influence from djent and progressive metal is still the driving force, where the clean/scream dynamic between Saosin/Circa Survive-style post-hardcore strained clean vocals and thick, ravaging metalcore growls is their soundscape's defining aspect. Yet here, the guitars seem to have gotten ever more complex and challenging, the song structures more progressive, and the production even more futuristic and expansive thanks to sensible use of subdued electronic effects to amplify their already vast, momentous expression into echoing heights. The compressed trigger-vibes from percussion (Rise Records style) sounds slightly more natural, resulting in a sound that also feels brutal and not just on paper: it's a truly crushing wall of sound that the band sends in our direction on just about every song on the record, thoroughly rattling your eardrums.

Add on top instantly catchy clean vocal choruses like those on "Gungrave", "House Of Glass" or "Snowblood" characterized by their coarse, emotive style, and insanely technical fretwork on display that underlines why the band said this record was partially written for the musicians out there, and you've got a chillingly accurate missile targeted towards the metalcore crowds almost as a mission statement: this is ERRA, and we play spectacular metalcore. Nowhere else is that more accurate than on "Lunar Halo", by the way, which introduces a space rock element through distant electronics and robotic vocal effects to an insanely technical song that guarantees you don't actually know how to play guitar, even if you thought you did.

Yes, you could say that bands like Periphery, Born of Osiris, Intervals, et al all belong into the same intrinsic idea that ERRA is delivering here, yet they've carved out their own little corner through intensely tight, yet incredibly complex fretwork and the post-hardcore cleans that make the songs a little less WRAAAGHH for WRAAAGHH's sake. Great stuff.

Download: Gungrave, Lunar Halo, Snowblood, House Of Glass
For the fans of: Periphery, Ghost Iris, Intervals, August Burns Red, Born Of Osiris, Veil Of Maya
Listen: Facebook

Release date 19.03.2021
UNFD

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